Occupation-based Measures Research Articles

Monopsony, Job Tasks and Labour Market Concentration

Abstract This paper extends the monopsony literature by taking a task-based approach and estimating the causal effect of concentration on labour market outcomes. Using detailed employer–employee data from Norway, we find that our job task-based measure shows lower degrees of concentration than conventional industry- and occupation-based measures. Exploiting mass lay-offs as exogenous shocks to local labour demand, we show that workers who experience mass separations in more concentrated markets have substantially worse subsequent labour market outcomes than workers in less concentrated markets. Our results point to the existence of employer market power that is driven by the concentration of skill demand across firms.

Risk and Preferences for Government Healthcare Spending: Evidence from the UK COVID-19 Crisis

AbstractThe onset of the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a large shock to the risk of acquiring a disease that represents a meaningful threat to health. We investigate whether individuals subject to larger increases in objective health risk – operationalized by occupation-based measures of proximity to other people – became more supportive of increased government healthcare spending during the crisis. Using panel data that track UK individuals before (May 2018–December 2019) and after (June 2020) the outbreak of the pandemic, we implement a fixed-effect design that was pre-registered before the key treatment variable was available to us. While individuals in high-risk occupations were more worried about their personal risk of infection and had higher COVID-19 death rates, there is no evidence that increased health risks during COVID-19 shifted either attitudes on government spending on healthcare or broader attitudes relating to redistribution. Our findings are consistent with recent research demonstrating the limited effects of the pandemic on political attitudes.

Feasibility of Increasing Occupation-Based Assessment Using the Knowledge to Action Framework.

The Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) is a standardized occupation-based measure; however, barriers often limit use in practice. The Knowledge to Action Framework (KTA) is one of the most widely used implementation approaches to induce practice change. The objective of the study is to examine the feasibility and acceptability of a KTA-informed intervention to increase the use of the AMPS. AMPS-trained occupational therapists were recruited through convenience sampling. Interventions included workshops, action planning, goal setting, peer support, and organizational resources. Recruitment and retention were tracked. Pre- and post-survey results of interventions' helpfulness, AMPS behaviors, and motivational changes informed acceptability. Participants (n = 5) rated 7/7 (100%) intervention strategies as helpful, reported decreased barriers and increased frequency of AMPS administration, increased resources for AMPS implementation, and improved compatibility with practice. Implementation of a KTA-informed intervention to increase AMPS practice was feasible and supported by environmental changes and peer support in a physical rehabilitation setting.

Occupation-specific recruitment: An empirical investigation on job seekers' occupational (non-)fit, employer image, and employer attractiveness.

Organizations may need to attract occupational groups they did not recruit so far to implement strategic changes (e.g., digital transformation). Against the backdrop of this practical problem, this study introduces and explores an occupation-based measure of person-organization fit: occupational fit. I investigate its relationship with employer attractiveness based on human capital theory and explore the role of employer image as a moderator in this relationship. I surveyed 153 software engineers and mechanical engineers to analyze whether their occupational fit with software engineering and mechanical engineering firms is related to employer attractiveness. I find that occupational fit is only related to a firm’s employer attractiveness among software engineers. Employer image does not moderate this relationship. A qualitative follow-up study proposes first explanations for the unexpected differences between the two occupations by indicating that occupations may differ in the logic they apply to determine fit and their degree of professionalization. The study contributes to research by highlighting the neglected role of occupation in recruitment research and exploring potential boundary conditions of recruitment for fit. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Exploring Social and Locality Variations of Dog Bites in Scotland Using Administrative Data Sources.

ObjectivesPrevious research has shown that hospital admissions for dog-bites are highest in the most deprived areas across England and Wales. In Scotland, thus far there has been no rigorous empirical investigation into social inequalities in dog-related injuries. This study aims to address this gap through analysis of linked administrative data.
 ApproachThe study uses administrative health data from NHS24 calls, A&E and SMR01 records involving dog-related injuries linked to Scotland Census micro-data. Area-based measures of social circumstance are considered through the SIMD, along with an exploration of novel, area-level characteristics including measures of local greenspace, average garden size and dog populations. Individual/household level measures of social circumstance taken from the Scottish Census are used to compare the characteristics of individuals with health records involving dog-related injuries to a random sample of individuals not appearing in the health data sets.
 ResultsWhen looking at individual level records and during modelling at aggregate area level, SIMD was an important factor in all models. Whilst some variation was observed across the different types of health data, the number of records, incident risk ratios and odds ratios were all consistently at least 2-3 higher when comparing the most to least deprived areas. Accounting for dog populations and introducing interaction terms for SIMD decile by dog population increased the main effect of SIMD.
 When comparing individual/household level measures of social circumstance taken from the Scottish Census, occupation-based measures such as NS-SEC appeared to be relatively important predictors of risk, alongside ethnicity, household composition and age, with children disproportionately represented.
 ConclusionIncident rates of dog-related injuries were higher in more deprived areas and circumstances where individuals may be seen as more socially disadvantaged at the individual or household level. Social/legal policies related to dog-bites typically don’t consider social disadvantage in any meaningful way. These results show the importance of doing so.

Predicting the onset of hypertension for workers: does including work characteristics improve risk predictive accuracy?

Despite extensive evidence of work as a key social determinant of hypertension, risk prediction equations incorporating this information are lacking. Such limitations hinder clinicians’ ability to tailor patient care and comprehensively address hypertension risk factors. This study examined whether including work characteristics in hypertension risk equations improves their predictive accuracy. Using occupation ratings from the Occupational Information Network database, we measured job demand, job control, and supportiveness of supervisors and coworkers for occupations in the United States economy. We linked these occupation-based measures with the employment status and health data of participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. We fit logistic regression equations to estimate the probability of hypertension onset in five years among CARDIA participants with and without variables reflecting work characteristics. Based on the Harrell’s c- and Hosmer–Lemeshow’s goodness-of-fit statistics, we found that our logistic regression models that include work characteristics predict hypertension onset more accurately than those that do not incorporate these variables. We also found that the models that rely on occupation-based measures predict hypertension onset more accurately for White than Black participants, even after accounting for a sample size difference. Including other aspects of work, such as workers’ experience in the workplace, and other social determinants of health in risk equations may eliminate this discrepancy. Overall, our study showed that clinicians should examine workers’ work-related characteristics to tailor hypertension care plans appropriately.

Social class inequalities in educational attainment: measuring social class using capitals, assets and resources

ABSTRACT There is a plethora of measures of social class, and social stratification more widely. Occupation-based measures are most frequently used in social stratification research, although more recently the propriety of such approaches have been questioned. An emerging school of thought advocates the use of more culturally based measures as the most appropriate indicators of an individual’s social class position, an argument predominantly influenced by the work of Bourdieu. In this paper, we evaluate the benefits of a social class measure with a Bourdieusian theoretical foundation compared with an orthodox neo-Weberian occupation-based social class measure, the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC). First, we assess how closely we can replicate the Bourdieusian social class measure reported in Savage et al. ([2013]. A new model of social class: Findings from the BBC's Great British class survey experiment. Sociology). Second, we aim to compare and contrast the capitals, assets and resources based social class measure with the occupation-based National Statistics Socio-economic Classification, in an analysis of inequalities in school GCSE outcomes.

Occupation-Based Measures\u2014An Overview and Discussion

Occupational information is among the most versatile categories of information about a person available in quantitative data. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of occupation-based measures in different topic areas. These include not only measures for analyzing social stratification, such as prestige scales, socioeconomic indices and class schemes but also measures of workplace tasks, occupation-specific health risks, gender segregation, and occupational closure.Moreover, as the quality of such data depends on the quality of the underlying occupational information, we also provide an overview of how to collect occupational information in surveys, how to code this information, and how occupational classifications are commonly used. By doing so, we hope to increase researchers’ awareness of the potential of occupation-based analyses, as well as their knowledge of how to properly handle such measures in empirical analyses.

Using occupation-based social classifications

Occupation-based social classifications are important social indicators, but are easily misunderstood. Using survey data from the UK and Sweden, we summarize the empirical relations between a number of alternative occupation-based social classifications. Results indicate similarity between most measures, though there are often quite considerable differences in the properties of related classifications according to the level of detail at which they have been operationalized (such as the number of categories). While these findings may seem unsurprising, they are in conflict with canonical theoretical interpretations attributed to occupation-based measures, where the level of detail is often overlooked, whereas the concepts associated with different measures are emphasized.

Perception is Reality: Effect of Subjective Versus Objective Socio-economic Position on Quality of Life

We tested the hypothesis that the relationship between social class measured according to employment relations and conditions and quality of life in older people was due to the influence of social class on the perception individuals had about their place in a social hierarchy. We used the data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) in which both an occupation-based measure, the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) and a subjective measure of social status (SSS) were included. Quality of life was measured using a 19-item Likert-scaled questionnaire (CASP-19). We found that even in the employed, SSS explained quality of life better than NS-SEC. The path analysis revealed that the effects of most NS-SEC categories on quality of life were fully mediated by SSS. The effect of SSS on quality of life was independent of advantageous occupational conditions, favourable life circumstances or mental health.

Indicators of Job Strain at Midlife and Cognitive Functioning in Advanced Old Age

We used data from SWEOLD, a Swedish nationally representative study of individuals aged 77 years or older, to examine midlife indicators of job strain in relation to cognitive performance and impairment. In all, 827 participants completed an abridged 11-point version of the Mini-Mental State Examination in-person in 1992 and/or 2002 and had self-reported and/or occupation-based scores for job control and demands from data collected in 1968. Seventeen percent scored below the cutoff for cognitive impairment. Controlling for age, sex, education, self-rated health, and year of cognitive screening, low self-reported and occupation-based job control at midlife was associated with poorer cognitive performance later (ps < .001). For the occupation-based measure, low job control was also associated with greater likelihood of impairment, whereas having an active job (high job control/high job demands) was associated with better cognitive performance and lower likelihood of impairment (ps < .01). Childhood environment, midlife depressive symptoms, and social activity had limited influence, whereas the influence of both adulthood socioeconomic position and work complexity on these results was more pronounced. Job control at midlife, by itself and in combination with job demands, may influence cognitive functioning later above and beyond demographic variables and other occupational characteristics.

Deriving trends in life expectancy by the National Statistics Socio‐economic Classification using the ONS Longitudinal Study

Health inequalities among socio-economic groups are well documented. One of the measures used to track inequalities over time is the series 'Trends in life expectancy by social class, 1972-2005', on the Office for National Statistics website. In 2001 the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC), replaced Registrar General's social class (RGSC) for the purposes of official statistics. This paper describes the challenges involved in producing an analogous series of trends in life expectancy by NS-SEC to that by RGSC, the approach adopted, and publishes the first results of the new series. NS-SEC was devised in the 1990s and introduced in 2001. Like RGSC, it is an occupation-based measure. In order to produce a series of trends over more than 20 years based on NS-SEC, it is necessary to classify people according to NS-SEC based on their occupation at the 1981 and 1991 Censuses and then to measure subsequent mortality rates for different classes. The 1981 Census preceded the construction of the NS-SEC classification system by nearly 20 years, and there was no recognised way of classifying 1981 Census respondents by NS-SEC. This paper describes how an approximation to allow such a classification was derived. The ONS Longitudinal Study was used to provide the data from which mortality and survival rates by NS-SEC class could then be estimated. The results are presented in terms of life expectancy at birth and at age 65 by five-year calendar periods, from 1982-86 to 2002-06. A social gradient was found using NS-SEC, similar to the one found using RGSC. For most classes for all periods studied, life expectancy improved for both males and females but inequalities persisted between classes. There was a difference of around six years for males between the most and least advantaged classes in expectation of life at birth and about four years for females in the period 2002-06. The estimates suggested a widening of inequalities over the study period for men, which appeared to end after 2001. For women, no overall trend could be detected, but there were no signs of any narrowing of the gap in the most recent period. NS-SEC can be used to provide medium-term trends in life expectancy by occupation based class, which will be capable of extension over time, although certain approximations are necessary. It is important that work should continue on investigating other means of classification, particularly for women, for example based on educational attainment and on household rather than individual-based measures.List of Tables, 12.

A MACROECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ON SKILL SHORTAGES AND THE SKILL PREMIUM IN NEW ZEALAND

Qualification and occupation-based measures of skilled labour are constructed to explain the skill premium – the wage of skilled labour relative to unskilled labour in New Zealand. The data exhibit a more rapid growth in the supply of skilled labour than the skill premium, and a very large increase in the real minimum wage over the period from 1986 to 2005. We estimate the rate of increase in the relative demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution. The data are consistent with skill shortages and a skill-bias technical change. We examine the effects of the minimum wage, capital complementarity, and the exchange rate on the skill premium. We also test whether the demand for skills and the elasticity of substitution varied across industries and over time.

Demand for knowledge workers in the vehicle industry

This study investigates two main issues related to knowledge workers in the vehicle industry. First, this study evaluates the demand for knowledge workers, and whether there is a trend shift from non-knowledge workers to knowledge workers in the vehicle industry. Second, this study demonstrates the main factors of these employment shifts in the vehicle industry. That is, this study examines the effect of technology change, international trade and educational attainment on the relative demand for knowledge workers. This study employed an occupation-based measure of knowledge workers based on Taiwan's occupational classification scheme. Using data from Taiwan's vehicle industry over the year 1988?2005, two empirical findings were observed in this study: First, based upon a simple relative demand and supply framework, this study infers that the demand for knowledge workers in Taiwan's vehicle industry rose during the period 1988?2005. Second, technology change had a dominant role in the demand for knowledge workers. Educational attainment is the second factor enhancing the relative demand for knowledge workers in the vehicle industry.

SOCIAL POSITION AND HEALTH: ARE OLD AND NEW OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATIONS INTERCHANGEABLE?

There is growing international interest in the choice of socioeconomic indicators for health research. This study used a combination of standard and novel methods to compare three occupation-based measures of social position in terms of their ability to explain variation and measure inequality in self-assessed health. The recently developed National Statistics Socioeconomic Classification (NS-SEC) is compared with its predecessor, the Registrar General's Social Class schema (RGSC), and with another occupation-based measure, the Cambridge Social Interaction and Stratification Scale (CAMSIS). With data from two large, independent, nationally representative samples of adults aged 16-64 living in private households in Scotland, logistic regression models are used to compare the classifications' ability to predict self-assessed health. Concentration indices are estimated to compare how well they capture inequality in self-assessed health. The study shows that all three classifications are strongly associated with self-assessed health, though the associations are heavily attenuated by adjustment for one another and for other measures of social position. Despite their differing theoretical bases, the three are closely related. No evidence is found that any of them systematically under- or overstate the extent of inequality in self-assessed health in either men or women, and the extent to which they measure independent dimensions of social inequality is questioned. It is concluded that the availability of the new classifications is unlikely to transform our understanding of the extent or the causes of socioeconomic inequality in health, but provides useful opportunities for sensitivity analysis.

The Revised Cambridge Scale of Occupations

The article describes the revision of the original Cambridge scale, a measure of similarity of life-style and therefore of generalised advantage/disadvantage, and compares this new version in a number of areas with other occupation-based measures of social stratification. The revision has been carried out using a much larger dataset, with respondents from a wide range of occupations. Female occupations have been specifically incorporated. Data from several previous studies are reanalysed using the Cambridge score and other measures or class categorisations. Areas considered include income and education, friendship, the occupations of husbands and wives and of fathers and children, and voting. In all cases it is shown that the Cambridge scale gives relationships at least as strong as, and in the great majority of cases stronger than, those found with the alternatives. The significance of this for the issue of the existence of discrete class categories and for the distinction between class and status is briefly raised.

Measures of Socioeconomic Status: Alternatives and Recommendations

MUELLER, CHARLES W., and PARCEL, TOBY L. Measures of Socioeconomic Status: Alternatives and Recommendations. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 13-30. In this paper we argue that it is ill-advised to use impressionistic or outdated measures of SES in psychological research. After we critique such inappropriate measures, 2 occupation-based measures, the Duncan Socioeconomic Index and the Siegel Prestige Scale, are recommended as the best measures of the SES of individuals or household heads. Another strategy is described for measuring household or family SES where the household characteristics and composition vary.